“It’s the same number of apples as every year,” Mary said as she pushed a flowering shrub into the dirt and began to press it in. “You’re only noticing them because of the harvest. Every year they have fallen to the ground.”
“Not this year,” Victor said. “We are doing things differently around here. Now, why are you tidying up so vigorously?” He indicated the rug airing on her windowsill. “You’re bustling around like mad when we want you to relax and enjoy your retirement.”
“My grandniece is visiting me, which you should know, as I’ve told you at least ten times. She will be in Clara’s old cottage.”
“I’ve been distracted,” Victor protested.
His every waking moment revolved around the growing protrusion on his wife’s midsection. She was agreeable enough to cooperate in some baseline experiments, and the trip to the altar on the hill had been just in time. He grinned now at the memory. “Jolly good of Arlo to perform one last ceremony, wasn’t it?”
“Focus,” Mary scolded, and handed him a broom. “Sweep up. I want everything to look respectable.”
“How old’s your grandniece? How does that work? Is she your sister’s granddaughter?” Victor didn’t much care about some stranger, but he listened dutifully, and swept a path for the first time in his entire life. “Seventeen? Careful she doesn’t fall in love with me. I am told that the girls in the village think me terribly handsome and rich, mysterious and refined. It’s all truth, but I am now married, and a father in a matter of months. All the girls fall in love with me,” he added to Belladonna, scratching her chin.
“I am sure you tell your reflection all that in the mirror every morning,” Mary replied cuttingly. “Mary isn’t a stupid girl; she won’t fall for whatever charms you believe you have.”
“Her name is Mary, too?” Victor smiled his particularly irresistible smile, and grudgingly Mary found herself smiling back.
“She is named for me. Put them on her bed,” she said to Adam, who was walking up the path with blankets in his arms. “Good boy,” she encouraged him. Mary had a grandson at long last, and it was delightful to see her dote on him in her way. “Do you feel all right?”
“Fine, fine,” Adam said in his grumbling tone as he trudged past. “Victor won’t need to top me up for another week, I’m sure.”
“Just let me know,” Victor replied, and patted his inner elbow firmly. “Plenty of blood to go around.” Inventing a reusable blood transfusion tube was much more difficult than anyone knew. In truth, it was a task that had nearly broken him, but he had been determined to do it without his sister’s assistance. Now that he thought about it, it was his first solo invention.
“It’s a story nobody would believe,” Mary said as they watched Adam bend down to fit through the cottage door. “Young Mary is a writer. She has a similar vivid imagination to you. You will get along with her. Ah, our little boy is here to visit old Aunt Mary.”
Up the path, Edwin was being bounced along each stepping-stone. His hands were held by a very careful man, and he arrived at Mary’s feet without injury.
Victor greeted them. “Commander. Clara. How lovely to see you both.”
Christopher lifted the boy up. “We can’t stay away. He loves it here.”
“It’s not the same here without you, Clara. I think you should move back.” Victor said it to rile Christopher, but she answered earnestly.
“I’ve gotten rather used to the academy,” Clara replied with a blush and straightened her son’s trousers. “It wouldn’t do for the commander’s wife to live by herself, would it?”
“The troops might talk,” Christopher agreed. “I shouldn’t like to get a reputation as a bad husband.”
“You could never do that.”
Victor bit into an apple loudly as they kissed. “We’re all taking coaches up to Larkspur as soon as Lizzie pops. She has an absolute insistence about lying on a blanket with Jelly. It makes no sense. And Jelly wants to plant her own apple tree. At least Arlo can keep it alive for her; she’s got no green thumb. You all should come; there’s endless guest bedrooms.”
“That’s a kind offer,” Christopher said awkwardly, but Clara finished his sentence firmly:
“We should love to. We miss Angelika and Arlo very much.”
“When Father Porter shuffles off his mortal coil, they can come back for a visit,” Victor said. “There’s no one left in the village who knows who Arlo really is. Thimms and the magistrate have moved away, thanks to some mysterious meddling.” He jingled his pocket for effect. “He can come back then and walk about without looking over his shoulder. And if Belladonna could accept that she’s a pig, Lizzie can walk around without a broom.” Still, his face creased in amusement as his ever-present shadow put her head against his leg. Down to her adoring face, he said, “You must give up on me.”